Clemens Accuser Gave Corpse a Beer as NYPD Cop, U.S. Says

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- A key government witness in the
perjury case against ex-New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens
put a beer can in a corpse’s hand while working as a New York
City police officer in the 1990s, according to a court filing.

Federal prosecutors described Brian McNamee’s “prior bad
acts” in a request to U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton in
Washington to bar Clemens’s lawyers from revealing them to
jurors. The incidents include McNamee putting a beer can in the
hand of a dead woman’s body in what he said in an unpublished
manuscript was an attempt at humor.

“While distasteful conduct, Mr. McNamee’s action of posing
the dead woman’s body with the beer can does not in any way
relate to Mr. McNamee’s ability to tell the truth,” prosecutors
said in the filing unsealed yesterday. Prosecutors said McNamee,
as a police officer, also lost his gun.

Four men and eight women on the jury will decide after four
to six weeks of evidence whether the seven-time Cy Young Award
winner lied to Congress when he said he never used performance-enhancing drugs. McNamee is scheduled to testify at Clemens’s
trial, which began April 23.

Clemens, 49, is charged with one count of obstructing a
congressional investigation, three counts of making false
statements and two counts of perjury. If convicted on all
charges, he faces as long as 30 years in prison and a $1.5
million fine.

July Mistrial

A previous trial ended when Walton declared a mistrial in
July. He found that prosecutors improperly showed the jury a
video clip of a 2008 congressional hearing in which the wife of
a government witness, Andy Pettitte, was discussed. Walton had
ruled earlier that the government could make no references to
Laura Pettitte or an affidavit she gave Congress. Andy Pettitte
is a former Clemens teammate and close friend.

Clemens, who pitched for the Yankees, Boston Red Sox,
Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays during a 24-year career,
used the anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, or HGH, to
remain competitive as he aged, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven
Durham told jurors during his opening statement.

The drugs were injected into him by McNamee, his former
personal trainer, who worked with the pitcher for 10 years,
Durham said. The evidence includes a needle and cotton balls
containing Clemens’s DNA that tested positive for anabolic
steroids, he said.

Rusty Hardin, a lawyer for Clemens, told jurors McNamee
manipulated the evidence and that an expert will testify it’s
easy to add somebody’s DNA to a needle that’s never been used in
an injection.

Sought to Profit

Hardin said McNamee sought to profit from his fame as
Clemens’s accuser. He showed jurors the cover of an unpublished
manuscript by McNamee titled “Death, Taxes and Mac” and called
attention to a $10 million lawsuit McNamee filed against Clemens
in New York.

In that manuscript, according to yesterday’s filing,
McNamee says he was docked 30 days pay for losing his gun while
on the New York City police force in the early 1990s. He was
disciplined another time for neglecting to properly oversee a
prisoner, according to the filing.

Regarding the beer can incident at a New York City
apartment, McNamee falsely told a supervisor at the scene that
he didn’t touch anything, according to the filing.

‘Poor Judgment’

“This conduct reflects poor judgment, but it does not
simultaneously reflect on Mr. Mcnamee’s veracity,’ prosecutors
said. ‘‘As his manuscript makes clear, Mr. McNamee’s sole intent
was to perpetrate a joke, not to deceive.”

Hardin declined to comment yesterday on the government’s
filing.

The filing also mentions a 2001 rape investigation in St.
Petersburg, Florida, in which McNamee was interviewed by police.
McNamee made false statements in the course of that probe,
prosecutors said in the court filing. He was never charged with
any crime related to the investigation.

Prosecutors said the only question Clemens’s defense team
should be allowed to ask McNamee about the Florida incident is
whether he made false statements to Florida police.

Allegations of substance abuse and other misconduct raised
by McNamee’s ex-wife in a divorce proceeding in New York were
redacted by prosecutors.

Walton hasn’t ruled on the request.

Bill Miller, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen,
declined to comment on the filing.

The case is U.S. v. Clemens, 10-cr-00223, U.S. District
Court, District of Columbia (Washington).